Girls basketball: Holy Family defense sets tone in top five showdown

Tigers outlast Machebeuf in Meto League opener

BROOMFIELD -- The Holy Family gym wasn't quite as frigid inside as the weather outside Friday evening, but suffice it to say the heat wasn't turned on full bore.

Not so for the Tigers' defense. Class 3A's fifth-ranked girls basketball team kept high-scoring and No. 2-ranked Bishop Machebeuf in the deep freeze and secured a 53-43 victory in the Metro League opener for both teams, knocking the Buffaloes out of the unbeaten ranks in the process.

"I thought we played a really fine defensive game," said Holy Family coach Ron Rossi. "For a team that averages 62 points, I thought we did a real good job of defending and rebounding."

Playing a variety of zone and man-to-man defenses, The Tigers held Machebeuf to 27 points and 23 percent shooting in building an eight-point lead after three quarters. The Buffaloes managed 16 points on 6-of-21 shooting in the fourth quarter and finished 15-of-60 shooting for the game.

"Twenty-three percent and 43 points -- that's not going to win a ballgame," said Machebeuf coach Ellie Kempfe, whose team got a game-high 22 points from leading scorer Aisha May but no more than seven from any other player. "Frustration set in early. I honestly think we got outplayed."

"I must've played six different defenses today," Rossi said. ''We swarmed to the ball, got our hands up on their shooters and our close-downs were good. Plus, we made it a halfcourt game."

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The young Tigers -- no returning starters from a 22-2 squad in 2012 and only three seniors on the roster, none of whom start -- improved to 7-3, a record which, as Machebeuf (6-1) learned, is a bit misleading. Holy Family's losses came to unbeaten 5A Mountain Range, 4A top-ranked Broomfield and 3A top-ranked St. Mary's.

"People look at it but don't look deep into it," said sophomore Megan McGillin, a starter who played on Holy Family's "C" team last year. "But we lost to good teams. It's good to play tough competition because it prepared us for games like tonight.

"Everybody was expecting a rebuilding year and I think we proved ourselves tonight."

McGillin , who averaged 2.1 points but scored six in the last game against Eaton, provided the Tigers with a big lift offensively when they pulled away in the third quarter. She scored six of her season-high 10 points as Holy Family expanded a 20-18 halftime lead, twice going up by eight and getting seven second-chance points. The Tigers led by as many as 14 points in the fourth quarter, 49-35, with just under two minutes remaining.

"It's amazing, it's fun," McGillin said of her rise to varsity. "The main thing I improved was my shot. In the third quarter I fell into a rhythm and I think I finally found what I needed to do."

The sister guard tandem of freshman Katie and junior Lindsey Chavez added 12 and 11 points, respectively, for a Holy Family offense that had nine girls in the scoring column and shot 47 percent from the floor over the final three quarters after solving Machebeuf's 1-2-2 zone. The Tigers went 4-of-12 in the first quarter.

"We didn't have good ball movement and were impatient early," Rossi said. "Then we started finding some seams for our inside game."

The win gives Holy Family an early edge in the Metro race, but it's no guarantee that a title is immiment. "The league really is tough," Rossi said. "It's one of the toughest in the state in 3A. I really think there's four or five teams that can win state, and Machebeuf's one of them."

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